Month: October 2010

The boiling Sun – In case you woke up today feeling important…there's a rather humbling picture that shows the scale of a plume of gas erupting from the surface of the Sun that would literally engulf the whole planet. More to the point, you could fit the Earth into the sun a million times over…and the sun isn't even a particularly big star and it's just one of billions in our galaxy and there are billions of galaxies in the "known" universe. The universe itself may simply be a tiny bubble in a even more unimaginable froth of universes…still pretty picture isn't it?

Alchemist for 27th October on ChemWeb.com – In this week's issue theoretical work opens up entirely new chemical vistas hinting at the chemistry of elements beyond atomic number 118 up to 172. In environmental chemistry, a new protocol for assessing a common ingredient of personal-care products could allow the risks associated with their use to be determined more accurately than before. An inexpensive support for platinum could make electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen economically viable, while waste products from wood processing offer an alternative feedstock for liquid fuels. In the medicinal world, details of a natural joint lubricant are revealed that could eventually improve prevention and treatment of joint disease. Finally, two major diseases of the developing world revolve around a single enzyme and new funding could help in the fight against these diseases.

Free Will is NOT An Illusion | Brain Blogger – If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. Nice expose of misinterpretation of freeewill tests since 1980s could mean we really do have a choice.

Toxic colour test – A new lab-on-a-chip sensor array that is little bigger than a business card can detect toxic industrial chemicals at low cost and at low concentrations.